


One New Message Waiting

by bagog



Series: Old Messages [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Destroy Ending, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sunsets, killed in action
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 11:04:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagog/pseuds/bagog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Shepard's death, Kaidan has been going through his things. He visits Earth to return some items to their rightful owner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One New Message Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing a longer piece, and decided at the last minute to not make it a depressing slog. But, because I'm all about feeling awful and have been grieving a lot lately, I decide to excise this bit and shore it up into a ficlet. Because it's sad, and not everyone likes feeling awful, there's a companion story called 'Someone's Waiting'. If you like fluff, go find that. If you like angst, read on.

“Lt. Sanders, my name is Kaidan Alenko. Do you have a moment to talk?”

Kaidan took his finger off the intercom and stuffed his hands back in the pockets of the leather jacket he wore. The wind coming off the bay was rattling through the dry oaks that lined the street, and the sun shone through a halo of ice-crystals low in the sky, slowly descending behind the wreck of a skyscraper downtown. The steam from Kaidan’s breath on the intercom mic had turned to frost. He checked the time on his omni-tool, steadfastly ignoring the ‘one new message’ indication on the corner of the display. It had become habit to ignore it.

“Come on up, Major. I’m packing, but I can spare a few minutes. 973.”

The door buzzed and Kaidan smiled. ‘Major’, so she knew him. Maybe that would make things easier. He frowned when he reached the elevator lobby: of course she knew him. Everybody knew the Second Human Spectre. He would look like he was entitled to an audience with Kahlee Sanders. Maybe he felt that way too, not like she owed him something, but that…

But what? Why did he think Kahlee could understand something about his situation he couldn’t? Everybody had lost somebody… a lot of people had lost… a lover.

The elevator rattled up to the ninth floor. The building was old, built before the downtown moved east and all the apartment complexes were metals and energy-efficient polymers. Kahlee’s apartment building was weathered brownstone, mottled walls where different decades of plaster indicated where ever-faster optical lines had been installed to keep the ‘quaint old building’ up-to-date for the eccentric high-dollar crowd it was reserved for. From the look of things, years before the war it had been designated low-income housing. Kaidan wondered when Kahlee had moved in. She couldn’t have seen much of this place, mostly living off planet for the last…

The elevator door opened. Down the hall, the door to apartment 973 was cracked open, and Kaidan knocked loudly as he slowly pushed his way in.

“Hello? Lt. Sanders?” He stepped inside and gently closed the door. The apartment was small, the winter sunlight shafting into the room through a large west-facing window that dominated the wall. The couch, the mismatched chairs, and the wobbly table were strangely appropriate against the silhouettes of ruined buildings in front of the setting sun. Kahlee appeared from the bedroom.

“Oh, hello Major,” she brushed a blonde lock behind her ear and shook Kaidan’s hand briskly, pulling her sweatshirt a little higher on her shoulder, “Umm, can I take your coat?”

“No, thank you, still feeling the cold a bit.”

“Yes, sorry about that.” She bustled over to the couch to remove a couple boxes from the cushions, “Never bothered to buy curtains for that window and I already turned off the heat, geez, I’m going to have you staring right into the sun if you sit here…” she began wrestling to rotate the sofa.

Kaidan hesitated for a moment. His instinct was to help her move the couch around, but at the same time he didn’t want to insinuate that she should be entertaining him or expecting him to stay. Finally he seized the other end of the couch adjusting it how Kahlee wanted. He sat in the cleared space she had made and she sat stiffly on one of the nearby chairs.

“I’m sorry to put you through the hassle, looks like you’re getting ready to leave,” he began.

“Yes. I’m heading back to Grissom, the repairs are just about done, I really was only on Earth for a few days to settle affairs.”

“Well, I won’t keep you long, I… um…” Kaidan cleared his throat, “My name is Kaidan Alenko—“

“I know who you are, Major,” Kahlee chuckled, fiddling with a few box tops, “Second human Spectre? It was big news.”

“Ah. Yeah. Well,” Kaidan rubbed the back of his neck, “I served with Admiral Anderson on the maiden flight of the Normandy. And I was with him in the Hammer team that made the push for the Citadel in London.”

Kahlee stopped adjusting boxes, but wouldn’t look up. The curtain of hair that had fallen from her loose bun casting a shadow across her face.

“Oh?”

“And I wanted, well, first of all I wanted to offer you my sincere condolences.” Kaidan said quietly. Kahlee seemed to release the breath she had been holding. When she looked up her expression was placid.

“Well thank you, Major. I appreciate that,” she said easily, “I had known Admiral Anderson for years. Was with him way back when _he_ was being considered for the first human Spectre. I owe him my life.”

Her eyes were so blue. Not like Shepard’s, though. Hers were a pale ice color, but in the light streaming through the dusky apartment, they looked just about like John’s brilliant dark eyes had. Kaidan hardly ever saw blue-eyed humans, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Something about those eyes, the military bearing in Kahlee’s face, blended with the independent vigor, the conversation about the ‘first human Spectre’… Kaidan had almost convinced himself to keep the conversation simple. He could offer his condolences and leave, as nothing more than an oddity in this woman’s day.

But suddenly he felt selfish. He felt alone, the way one feels alone when they are so close to finding someone who truly understands what they’re going through. Kahlee had continued speaking, and Kaidan barely caught her question.

“I suppose you also served with Commander Shepard then? Both on the Normandy and… and in London? I met him once, he was a great man.”

“Yes ma’am, he sure was.” Kaidan swallowed hard.

“It’s strange, I didn’t see you at Admiral Anderson’s memorial service. Or at Commander Shepard’s for that matter.” She sat back in her chair, folding her hands on her knee as she crossed one leg over the other.

“No ma’am,” Kaidan tried to smile, attempting to resolve the challenge in the air, “I was aboard the Normandy, we were stranded on the other side of Arcturus with heavy repairs. By the time we limped back we’d missed most of the ceremonies.”

“…ah,” Kahlee broke her gaze and squinted out the window, “Well they were both very nice. Wonderful to take the time to remember great men even with all the rubble lying around.”

“Absolutely.”

“Mhm.”

The two sat in silence, Kahlee attempting to make something more orderly out of the rubber-band holding her hair back, and Kaidan squirming against the uncomfortable sofa.

“Also,” Kaidan spoke at last, removing a small black bag from the folds of his jacket, “It’s… it’s fallen to me to handle some of Shepard’s— _Commander_ Shepard’s—personal effects. He didn’t have much. But… I’ve been sorting through his apartment on the Citadel—the one Admiral Anderson gave to him towards the end of the war—and, I know this is weird, but I wanted to see that this got back to you.”

He hadn’t really set that up so well, and Kahlee looked bemused when he handed the bag to her. She held it for a moment, before noticing the small ‘K. Sanders’ on the tag on the zipper. She bit her lip and seemed to hold her breath a moment, and when she looked up at Kaidan her expression was mingled suspicion and misery, but as if she was looking at him for the first time. She carefully opened the bag, smiling as she removed a bottle of fragrant oil, popping the cap and inhaling deeply.

“Ah, well…” she giggled and stopped herself suddenly, as if allowing the laughter might bring tears, “The… umm, the factory that made this is rubble now. Whole colony’s gone. I used to buy these from a boutique downtown whenever I visited Earth. It’s… well, it’s a pile of ash now too. I must have left it at… David’s just before the invasion.”

Kaidan nodded softly and tried to smile. Seeing Kahlee open up just a little pushed him closer to that precipice of loneliness, when two are grieving in a room and only one understands how the other is truly suffering.

“Well, better hold onto it then. Could be the last in the universe.” He smiled and shifted uneasily.

“Thank you, Major,” Kahlee said, and this time sounded sincere, “Like I said, David and I go way back.” She covered her mouth for a moment and nodded, gently removing each item from the bag.

“Again, my deepest sympathy for your loss, ma’am.” Kaidan said, and moved to stand.

“Major,” Kahlee bolted forward when Kaidan shifted, and so both froze at the edge of their seats, “You… were with him at the end?”

“I suppose I was. Shepard’s team was in the shuttle with the Admiral before the final push. I was badly injured before Shepard made it to the beacon, so I’m afraid I couldn’t be there for him—Anderson, that is… or Shepard… at the end.”

“Oh,” they could not meet each other’s eyes, “and how did you come by the job of sorting through the Commander’s effects?”

Kaidan looked away for a moment. The sun was still blinding through the west-facing window, and Kahlee and his own shadow stretched along the floor and onto the far wall: two dark figures hunched forward under a great weight. Maybe it was that obvious, maybe to mention anything would violate the unspoken bond he and Kahlee had established. But maybe that was all in his head.

How do you show up at a stranger’s home under the auspices of condoling her and returning something of hers, only to then reveal to her you came for completely selfish reasons?

“I sort of took the responsibility on myself.” Kaidan said at last, tone colder than he meant it.

“I see.” Kahlee nodded, staring down at the half-filled boxes even as she clutched the small bag, “Well, again, thank you very much for—“

“Shepard’s dog tags,” Kaidan blurted before he could stop himself, “had me listed as the next of kin. He… he didn’t have any family, and I was supposed to be the one to make the funeral arrangements should anything happen, I was supposed to bring him home…” he took a deep breath, “they buried him before I could get back.”

Kahlee’s eyes grew wide, brows crinkling her forehead as her fingers loosened around her black bag.

“Oh.”

“When I came through the Relay… a message from Shepard auto-downloaded onto my omni-tool… and that’s when I knew…” he turned away from Kahlee’s stare directly into the setting sun, his quick squint forcing the tears out of his eyes.

“Major… I’m… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Just Kaidan, please.” He said softly.

“How long had…?”

“Not long,” Kaidan inhaled deeply and tried to compose himself, the wet skin on his cheeks burning against his attempt to smile, “Not long enough, huh?”

“No such thing, Kaidan,” Kahlee said, mirroring his attempt, but not the smile itself, “David and I missed a lot of opportunities over the years. But we had each other. We made our plans. We knew… what we meant to each other.”

Kaidan wanted to shout that he and Shepard _hadn’t_ made any plans, had been too superstitious to decide on where to go and what they’d do when the war was over. Neither man was planning on surviving. Certainly neither was imagining he would survive alone.

“After the Normandy went down I couldn’t believe that he’d be gone,” Kaidan sighed, “Refused to put his name on the memorial wall. Part of me still believes… years from now… that he’s going to come strutting up to me in some bar on Illium,” he couldn’t suppress a nervous laugh, “Or the Citadel… but rigging his omni-tool to send a message to the Relay buffer when his heart stopped, I _taught_ him that trick. It feels… final somehow.”

“Anderson called me on the QEC before we delivered the Crucible. I told him to be careful. To come back to me.” Kahlee had shifted in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest against the cold, “The Alliance delivered his KIA letter later… and that helped.”

“I haven’t listened to Shepard’s yet, feels…”

“Yeah I get that.” Kahlee stood and walked behind the half wall into the kitchen, when she returned she offered Kaidan a cup of tea, and threw some more boxes on the floor to sit next to him on the couch. She sipped at her own cup, “…your tea is cold isn’t it?”

“Stone cold.” Kaidan deadpanned and the chuckle between them built until they both shook with laughter. Kahlee breathed deeply, still snorting with laughter, wiping the tears from her eyes,

“I’m glad they were together at the end.”

“John… well. He didn’t get close to many people. But he always spoke of Anderson as if he were a father.”

Kahlee stared at Kaidan with affection for a moment, the smile on her face turning bittersweet.

“I’m glad you told me that. David… we… always wanted kids.”

They talked softly for a few more minutes, walking the mourners’ path back and forth between laughter and tears, and when at last it was time to leave, Kaidan felt himself afraid to go. Here was someone who understood, perhaps better than anyone, loving a man when duty kept pulling you apart. Loving a hero who could not stay out of the fray. Of silently waiting for years to build a life with someone when both of your lives had always been for the Alliance. Of running out of time. And now again, he was running out of time.

Outside that door, the world was still spinning—he’d seen to that himself, and so had John—and rebuilding and mourning. Everyone was mourning, the razor’s edge of loneliness when every face you met was as much drowning in its loss as you were drowning in yours… where even empathy felt impossible… for a moment he had found relief from that with Kahlee Sanders.

He said goodbye, thanked her politely, and tried to convey everything that words could not express when he returned her embrace. Then he was out on the street again, his breath puffing out ahead of him.

Kaidan meandered down to the bay, sitting on a bench and staring out as the waves glimmered in the rays of the sinking sun. His omni-tool lit up, the same orange as the west, and John’s voice sounded as if it rose out of the sea.

_“Kaidan,_

_If you’re listening to this, then my heart’s stopped. Maybe that means I’m dead… again. Heh. I know you’ve got one of these messages ready to go if anything happens to you, but I’m sorry to say it’s not really my usual thing. I’m good at objectives or getting soldiers moving. But I’m not really sure what the objective is here, K. Kaidan. Sorry._

_That’s the way it’s been for us, I guess. I’ve been jumping from one mission to the next since I can remember. The idea of spending my life with you, of living for you. That feels… so good. So new. That’s kept me going as long as I have._

_Dammit, I know you’d have something better than this to say. I wish I had your gift for words. You always did see things… differently. You see things as beautiful when I just see goals… or targets… or assets. I’ve been trying to learn more of that from you lately, wish we’d have more time for it._

_I’m not very good at this, and I’m pretty stiff when it comes to eloquence or seeing things like you do. So I’m sorry this is so short. But the only thing I’ve been able to see as beautiful and good the way you see things is… well, is you. Kaidan._

_I… uhh... I love you. You’re my everything. You were on my mind as soon as I woke up in that Cerberus Lab. I guarantee you were the last thing on my mind when whatever finally got me got me. The past year has been a nightmare and you’ve been the only things that’s… that’s_ real _. I love you. I_ love _you._

_I guess I should say: don’t mourn me. Don’t let me weigh you down. Remember who I was, the good and the bad. And remember you were the best part of me. I love you. Okay._

_Not saying goodbye. Love you._

And then there was only the sound of the waves.

Of course his final letter would be rattled off like a list: checking off everything you _should_ say in a KIA letter. Always the good soldier. It was too cold to shed any tears, and Kaidan’s teeth chattered together as the wind swept up and the spray from the water flecked his face instead. Shepard’s life was one priority objective after another, Kaidan knew that about him. Loved that about him even. The last item on the list was ‘Kaidan’. The last item was “I love you.”

The sun set into the water. Tomorrow was the first day of spring.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Woah, you read the whole thing. Thanks a lot for reading, I hope it did something for you. I don't want you to be sad, so if you want, you can go read 'Someone's Waiting' for something a little happier. Thanks again. Oog. I need a nap.


End file.
